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Addressing Tanner, Judge Phillip Mott said he understood Tanner was not part of the operation to supply drugs in Cornwall directly, but had been recruited as part of the wider network.

“Your concern in that supply operation started when you were recruited in Liverpool to be part of the group finding out what happened to these drugs and, perhaps most importantly, to find out who was responsible," he said.

“There is no doubt in my mind you were recruited not just because you were a drug user, but because you are man prepared to use weapons, such as knives as you have in the past, and to use violence. You were in other words a ‘hard man’.”

He added: “I note that one member of the group with you, looking for the drugs, had a firearm and that firearm was discharged, injuring a member of the group.”